Authors: Dorothy Phaire
“Helen, I need to talk to someone professionally. Do you have anyone that you can recommend?”
“Are you all right, Dear?” Helen asked.
“No. Actually, I’m not,” said Renee, fighting back her tears.
“You can talk to me, Renee. We’ve known each other for years, professionally and personally. Are you feeling depressed or overwhelmed by something?”
“Not exactly. Well, I’m not really sure.”
“This sounds serious. I have an opening this morning at 11:30. Does that sound good for you?”
“Yes. Thank You, Helen.”
“Okay, then, Honey. Here’s my new address. I’ve recently relocated to a new office downtown on K Street,” said Helen and read off the address.
“I’ll be there,” said Renee, solemnly.
“All right, Dear, I’ll see you at eleven thirty.”
“Right. Good-bye Helen and thanks again for seeing me on such short notice.”
Renee opened the door that led into the reception area and instructed Brenda to reschedule all of her afternoon appointments. She didn’t know what time she would return to the office and probably would not feel like seeing clients. She told Brenda she could lock up and leave for the day once all the afternoon appointments had been rescheduled. Renee felt bad about being distracted throughout the Hollingsworths’ visit that morning, but she was in no position to help anyone today. Typically, she focused entirely on the patient by raising her eyes to the speaker and not withdrawing her attention until he or she finished speaking. But after suddenly remembering what Aunt Clara did to her when she was sixteen, she couldn’t concentrate. She grabbed her navy London Fog trench coat from the closet and went upstairs to exit out the front door of the main house, avoiding Brenda’s questions and the look of worry on her secretary’s face.
A
s Renee drove towards downtown K Street, she saw that a late morning drizzle had left a smoky-colored mist over the sky that made it difficult to see clearly. Rain brought out even more than Washington’s usual road-raged drivers locked in bumper-to-bumper traffic. As a psychologist trained in the Jungian school of thought, Renee had been taught to cure herself first before treating others. She had suffered from bouts of depression before but nothing had triggered the memory of the traumatic time in her life before the session with Heather and her parents. There was something about that woman, Mrs. Hollingsworth, that had reminded her of Aunt Clara’s reaction to news of her own teenage pregnancy. Suddenly, everything had come flooding back to her. Physician heal thyself. She knew the familiar maxim all too well. Her mentor and now colleague, Dr. Helen Stone, had agreed to see her right away this morning. If Helen urged her to dig deeper, would Renee like what she found underneath the superficial surface that she presented to the world? Would she be able to accept the truth about herself? Would she be able to slay her own dragons? Face her own demons? How else would she be able to begin healing and start living a life she wanted and not one that had been mapped out for her—programmed into her subconscious?
Renee parked her car in the only spot available several blocks away from Helen’s office and walked briskly through the light rain as the wind swept through her trench coat. As she walked, she tried not to think about that doctor’s house located in a backwoods country town where her aunt had taken her to have an abortion without her knowledge. She focused on her breathing, inhaling deep breaths then letting each breath out slowly to try to forget. It didn’t work. Renee blinked several times to clear away the onset of tears that had begun to blend in with the rain’s light drizzle falling on her cheeks. She couldn’t shake her feelings of helplessness amidst so many disturbing thoughts that she found difficult to handle on her own right now. She glanced down at her watch and saw she was early for her appointment with Helen.
Renee entered the security-guarded building fifteen minutes early and took the elevator to the 5
th
floor. She walked into Dr. Helen Stone’s office feeling even worse than before. Fortunately, the waiting lounge was empty when she arrived and she had a few minutes alone to collect herself before the receptionist returned from her break or wherever she was at the moment.
After several minutes of waiting alone in the reception area, Helen herself appeared to invite Renee into her counseling chamber. Helen explained that she was lacking a receptionist at the moment. Her secretary had not been able to make the move to the new location and had resigned. Renee stammered an apology for making this last minute appointment, but Helen’s smile and warm, amber eyes immediately put her at ease. Helen was dressed in a tweed, calf-length skirt and maroon turtleneck sweater that give a bit of color to her pale complexion. Renee draped her raincoat across a nearby chair and sat down. While Helen poured them both a cup of herbal tea, Renee studied her colleague’s new office. Potted, floor plants bursting with healthy foliage filled the room. A row of hanging plants lined the window and more potted greenery competed with books for shelf space on the floor-to-ceiling case. Renee almost felt like she was in a tropical rain forest. Pastel pink walls, impressionist paintings, and ocean sea breeze music playing in the background further added to the room’s tranquil effect. Renee closed her eyes for a moment as her nose delighted in a pleasant aroma of potpourri and relaxing tea blends. Did she really want to be here and face the truth—reveal old wounds that she had shut out years ago? Renee experienced a brief tightness in her chest. She gripped the arms of the chair and thought about getting up and fleeing the session.
Helen sipped her tea in silence as she watched Renee. Renee understood the doctor/patient dance well enough and knew that Helen was waiting patiently for Renee to open up. That morning’s session with the family of a pregnant teen had unlocked Renee’s memory of an unpleasant event that she had long forgotten as a self-protection mechanism. Now she remembered more and more details of that particular time in her past. She gradually began to feel comfortable sharing those details with her psychiatrist. Renee told Helen what happened to her that summer in high school when she was sixteen. Everything came out in a jumbled blur.
“For the first time I remembered my high school boyfriend, Randolph. He and I were walking hand-in-hand to Memco Department store to buy our unborn baby’s first outfit, yellow knit booties, matching sweater and cap,” said Renee, gazing into her folded hands, “I fear that was my last chance to be a mother.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“I feel like I'm being punished,” said Renee, “I should have been able to stop Aunt Clara somehow.” Renee began to sob into her hands. She accepted the tissue that Helen handed her. She heard Helen pouring a glass of water from the pitcher and place the glass on the edge of the desk in front of her, but she didn’t look up. Suddenly, in Renee’s mind it was July 1972 again. Aunt Clara’s voice permeated her thoughts.
“
There’s no need in involving your worthless father. I'll take care of this myself.”
She’d just returned from the doctor’s isolated cottage tucked away in a York, Pennsylvania countryside, and Renee was staring at the rosebud border encircling her pale pink bedroom walls and crying. She jumped at the sound of Aunt Clara bursting through her bedroom. “
Stop this foolishness right now, Renee Janette Curtis! No sense in you lying around here moping. The whole bucket of milk is spilled and you want to put it back.”
At 16 she hadn’t understood what Aunt Clara meant about the spilled milk but now she did. They had snatched her unborn baby from her body twenty-nine years ago while she slept in an anesthetic coma. Like spilled milk, her baby couldn’t be put back. The churchgoing Aunt Clara had looked Mr. and Mrs. DeWitt in the eyes and lied. She had told Randolph’s parents that Renee started hemorrhaging in the middle of the night and had to be rushed to the hospital where she lost the baby. It was best for all concerned if Renee and Randolph stopped seeing each other. The DeWitts agreed with her and promised to keep their son away from Renee. Like everyone else in their middle-class Northeast neighborhood, Renee feared Aunt Clara. She’d kept quiet about their family secret just as her aunt ordered. Over the years, she’d completely erased it from her memory until now.
“I’ve wrestled with an unknown guilt for years but didn’t understand why. Now it’s all come crashing down on me. I don’t deserve to be happy.”
“You’ve been suffering from a type of post-traumatic stress, Renee. That’s how you were able to lock away the trauma of losing your baby. It’s been deep within your subconscious for so many years.”
“Perhaps, this is the reason you tried to adopt a baby without your husband’s agreement,” Helen continued, “You saw adoption as another chance at motherhood.”
“Yes. I know how Bill feels about being a father but I thought I could get him to change his mind. I suppose I have to accept the fact that motherhood is just one more part of my life that will have to go unfulfilled.”
“How are things at home between you and your husband?”
Renee hesitated for a moment and then opened up to her therapist. She was surprised at her candidness in confiding to Helen the intimate details of her marriage. Although, she respected her as a colleague and mentor and even considered her a friend, Renee never had any close girlfriends to call on when things became emotionally rough. Her entire childhood and now adult life had involved keeping her true feelings hidden. Years of psychotherapeutic training had taught her how to be evasive while compelling others to face the truth. Add to that, Aunt Clara’s constant admonitions to always present a respectable and private demeanor. But this time, Renee didn’t mince words when she answered Helen’s personal questions about her relationship with Bill.
“My husband competes with me and resents my success. Right now, he’s occupied with some joint venture he’s involved in and he’s not concerned about how I feel about anything including adoption. He doesn’t have time to listen to me. I’m nothing more than a warm body to him. We haven’t made love in over a month and when we did I was just an outlet for his built-up, sexual tension.”
“What about your own built-up, sexual tension?” said Helen, “Are you doing anything about that?”
“Like everything else in my life, I’ve learned how to block it out,” said Renee, “Sex with Bill is predictable. I know what he’ll say, which is nothing. I know what he looks like, feels like. I know how long it’ll last and exactly what happens afterwards. He’ll go back to sleep. I don’t feel special to him. I don’t feel loved or cherished.”
“Honestly Helen, I’d rather get up early and watch the sun come up and sip a good, hot cup of coffee than linger in bed with him. I’m afraid he probably feels the same about me.”
“Well, Renee, you’re still a young, attractive woman. What are you prepared to do about this situation? Are you going to demand changes in your marriage or are you going to end it and seek happiness elsewhere?”
“I’m not sure I follow what you mean?”
“Happiness comes to those willing to fight for it. Are you up to the battle, Renee? Or do you intend to just stay numb the rest of your life? These are questions that only you can answer.”
Renee told Helen how she tried to do something completely out of the ordinary. She described her preparations in arranging a surprise, intimate evening with Bill. But the plans blew up in her face. Now she didn’t have the desire after he brushed her aside on her birthday.
“It’s time you discovered who Renee Hayes really is, what she wants, and how to get it,” said Helen. “Two negative emotions will try to stand in your way, fear and guilt. Don’t let them. Release your fears of not ever being truly loved and not experiencing motherhood. Then get rid of the anger and guilt from things that happened to you in the past.”
“This may sound cliché, but that’s easier said than done,” said Renee, trying to hold back her tears.
“Renee, I believe you’re experiencing the long-term effect of losing both your parents at a young age” said Helen, as she continued, “I believe this has affected all of your adult relationships from what you’ve told me over the years. Your mother died when you were seven and your father simply wasn’t there for you. To me, you appear to be manifesting symptoms similar to children of divorced parents. Then, there’s your recent memory of a teen pregnancy that ended without your consent or knowledge. You do realize that you’re suffering from anxiety because of all this?”
“Yes, I know Helen. But, I thought I had it under control.”
Helen rested her clasped hands on top of her desk as she looked Renee straight in the eye. “Honestly Renee, what would you tell your patients in this situation?”
“I would first suggest the behavioral approach. I’d teach them breathing desensitization and relaxation techniques to ease their anxiety.”
“Well, there you have it! Have you tried these exercises that you would advise your patients to follow?”
“Yes, I’ve tried that. It’s not working for me. I need you to prescribe something.”
“I can prescribe an anti-depressant. Zanax or perhaps Ativan. Do you have a preference for any particular type of the common benzodiazapiens?”
“You and I both know those will take 3-4 weeks to work! Why don’t you give me some Lexapro? That will work much faster.”
“Of course, you’re right. I can prescribe Lexapro for you, but you know that medication is addictive.”
“I know, but it won’t be a problem. I won’t be on it that long. I just need something to get me through this. I need something to stop these horrible intrusive memories. I’m actually afraid to go to sleep.”
“Very well,” sighed Helen as she unlocked her desk drawer and removed a prescription pad. “Listen to me, Renee. You must free yourself from all those fears—fear of loss, of change, and of being hurt. It’s a liberating sensation when you do.” Helen ripped the filled out prescription from the pad and held it up, away from Renee. “Don’t be afraid to change.”